


and it's right before your eyes

by whatsupdanger



Category: Henry Danger (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, and turned into this, could be read as platonic or romantic, rivals au, this started off as a small headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 11:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsupdanger/pseuds/whatsupdanger
Summary: she zooms in, snaps a picture, and then it’s done. it’s over, she has exactly what she needs, exactly what she’s been looking for for months now. henry hart is kid danger, and she’s the first person with real, tangible proof.or, in which charlotte and henry have been rivals from the start, and charlotte knows she’s right about this.





	and it's right before your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not lying when i say this was totally not my intention. basically i started making some posts on my tumblr (@kiddangers) about a classmate trying to expose henry, completely as a joke, and then i had this idea and i started typing out headcanons and before i knew it it was over 1k words. and i haven't written anything that's not in chat format for a while, so i edited it some and made it more of a fic. 
> 
> i hope at some point i can expand on this idea, because i just love the whole rivals-to-friends/lovers trope and it fits chenry remarkably well. for now, though, have this short, messy, unbeta'd thing. enjoy :)

here’s the thing: henry and charlotte aren’t best friends.

far from it, actually. maybe _hate _is a strong word, in charlotte’s mind (although henry is all-too-quick to use it), but they’ve been at odds since they were kids. really, it’s hard for either of them to pinpoint when it started. maybe it was in the first grade, when henry broke charlotte’s magenta crayon and insisted he wasn’t the culprit. maybe second, when they had to share a cubby together, which led to constant bickering. maybe fourth, when charlotte ratted him out for playing on his nintendo ds in class. but at some point, they started hating each other. and they’re not really sure why they still do now—that’s just the way it’s always been.

they compete over _everything—_student council positions, academics, sports, even stupid, trivial things like instagram followers. and to be honest, charlotte doesn’t like being that egotistical person she becomes whenever she’s trying to one-up him, but she can’t help it. he’s so prideful and careless and arrogant and it’s _infuriating. _

and when kid danger shows up, she’s the _only person _who isn’t fooled. somehow, she knows its him; maybe it’s the height, or the haircut, but she knows. and she confronts him, and he denies it vehemently, but charlotte knows better than to fall for it. there’s clues everywhere, and she prides herself on being smart—so of courseshe picks up on the little things that _no one else seems to notice._

like how henry’s always late to class. how he’ll always miss school right around the time that kid danger shows up. how he’s always so eager to get to work, how he has to step away from his friends before taking calls, how his watch always beeps and he acts like the world is ending. 

“i know that it’s you,” she says, and the smirk on his face is so smug that charlotte half wishes she believed in solving issues with violence just so she could wipe it off of his face. 

“prove it,” he replies.

and she tries. she hangs around the stupid junk store he works at more often than any normal person. she watches his every move like a goddamn hawk. she listens to his phone conversations more closely than she’d like to admit. she talks to loose-lipped jasper, who’s henry’s best friend and someone she’s been close to ever since they started sharing fashion advice and physics notes, but either he’s _really _good at playing dumb or henry really hasn’t told him yet—and is better at keeping secrets than she would’ve expected.

but she _knows. _it has to be him—and she isn’t going to stop until she gets her proof. she’s not even sure why it means so much to her; maybe it’s a mixture of pride and stubbornness but she _knows _she’s not wrong and she _needs _the evidence. 

and then—of all places—she’s at burger castle.

three masked men bust through the door, and there’s shouting and screaming and gunshots fired at the ceiling, and everyone’s ducking under the tables. and captain man’s out of town for the weekend; the news had spread like wildfire through swellview, so maybe that’s why the robbers choose now to do it (_but a fucking burger castle? seriously?)_

and then kid danger saunters through the door. he’s all witty comebacks and an overall air of carelessness, but there’s a note of relief mixed in with the annoyance in charlotte’s chest. he takes them down fast, but it’s a messy fight—he somehow ends up with ketchup covering his hands, so he strips off his gloves.

and that’s when charlotte sees it. there’s a birthmark on the side of kid danger’s wrist, and maybe she doesn’t _like _henry hart but she _knows _him, maybe too well and at least well enough to know that he has the same one in the same place. she zooms in, snaps a picture, and then it’s done. it’s over, she has _exactly _what she needs, exactly what she’s been looking for for _months _now. henry hart is kid danger, and she’s the first person with real, tangible proof.

then, she looks over at him. he’s kneeling in front of a crying girl who can’t be more than six, with his hands on her shoulders and a gentle smile on his masked face. he says something that charlotte can’t hear, and the girl giggles, and for a moment, she doesn’t see the pride and arrogance that always seems to surround henry. she just sees a hero.

then he turns, and his eyes lock on hers, and maybe he knows her as well as she knows him because he takes one look at the phone in her hands and the look on her face and the expression drops from his. charlotte half runs out the door, and then she makes a decision.

“charlotte!” he catches up to her, and tugs her behind the building and away from the news vans that have just pulled up. his eyes are so wide with panic that she thinks she can hear his heart racing. 

“henry,” she says, and he looks, for the first time that day despite staring down the barrel of a gun only a few minutes ago, afraid.

“you have proof, don’t you?” it’s not really a question. he tugs a hand through his hair and swallows as she nods mutely .

“_please,” _he says, and of all the ways she’d pictured this moment going this was never one of them. “i know we’re not...friends, i _know _we’ve never _been _friends but i can’t—this could put _everyone _i care about in danger.” he sounds so desperate. “and i’m sorry i’ve been a jerk to you for so long, it was so stupid, i don’t even know why i ever did any of that stuff to you but now i’m asking you, charlotte, please don’t tell anyone. i can’t let this get out, that would mean that it’s all over and i—”

“henry,” she cuts in, and when he glances up at her his eyes are rimmed in red. “i deleted the video.”

“you what?”

charlotte bites her lip, shifting on her feet—and she’s not usually one to get nervous or awkward but henry looks like he’s about to cry and she’s just doing her best to explain herself. “you’re right; we’ve never been friends. but you—you saved a lot of people today. you’ve been saving a lot of people since you started doing this, and i’m not gonna take that away because of some petty grudge that,” and she laughs a little despite herself, “i can’t even remember the reason for. so, you don’t have to worry about it anymore. i won’t say anything.”

the look on his face is so intensely relieved that it’s almost endearing. “thank you,” he says, voice a little breathless, and she nods at him, smiling softly.

“it’s the least i could do, kid danger,” she replies, and as a smile slowly eases on his face she adds, “besides, maybe now i can help you. some of your tech needs a _major _upgrade.”

he laughs, a clear, warm sounds that lights up his whole face, and she thinks fleetingly about how much time they could’ve spent sharing those smiles instead of arguing. “let’s not get ahead of ourselves, yeah?” he jokes, and she punches his shoulder and thinks that this is something that she could _definitely_ get used to. 


End file.
